The Center for Biological
Diversity, Navajo environmental group Diné Citizens Against Ruining
Our Environment (Diné CARE), and Colorado based Center for Native
Ecosystems today sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to overturn the
agency's critical habitat designation for the Mexican spotted owl under
the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The final designation, published on
February 1, covers 4.6 million acres of federally owned land in Arizona,
New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. The groups are suing because the final
rule eliminated more than 9 million acres of proposed habitatlargely
within Arizona and New Mexico National Forests, where 90% of known owls
exist. The final rule also eliminated proposed habitat on Navajo Nation
tribal lands.

"The ultimate
survival and recovery of the Mexican spotted owl will require protection
of the owl's habitat on Arizona and New Mexico National Forests,"
stated Brian Segee, forest watch coordinator with CBD. "Critical
habitat provides permanent protection from shifting political winds and
the Forest Service's consistent attempts to log, graze, and mine the owl's
habitat," continued Segee.

"The Service
has taken the remarkable position that the best habitat for the Mexican
spotted owl should not be included in its critical habitat designation.
That approach makes no sense, and certainly does not comply with the ESA,"
stated Matt Kenna, attorney for the groups.

The current suit
is merely the latest chapter in the struggle to protect the spotted owl
and its habitat under the Endangered Species Act. The Center for Biological
Diversity has engaged in over 10 years of intensive research and litigation
on behalf of the owl, first filing a petition to list the imperiled raptor
under the Act in 1989. The current lawsuit is the third CBD has filed
seeking lawful critical habitat designation. In a previous suit, decided
in March 2000, a New Mexico federal judge praised CBD's "valiant
and persistent" efforts to protect the species.

Attempting to justify
its exclusion of Arizona and New Mexico National Forest lands, Fish and
Wildlife Service argues that existing Forest Service management is an
adequate substitute for critical habitat. On the contrary, the Forest
Service routinely violates the spotted owl recovery plan and its own management
guidelines, including guidelines requiring monitoring of livestock grazing
in spotted owl habitat and prohibiting logging within spotted owl nest
sites. Additionally, Southwestern Regional Forester Eleanor Towns in July
invited public comments on a proposal to eliminate all spotted owl protections
within ½ mile of wildland-urban interface areas. More than 130
territories15% of those known to exist in the Southwestwould
be sacrificed under this plan.

"Fish and Wildlife's
claim that Forest Service management is an adequate substitute for critical
habitat designation doesn't pass the laugh test," said Segee. "The
Forest Service remains the spotted owl's biggest threat," concluded
Segee.

The Mexican spotted
owl was listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1993,
primarily in response to heavy logging and resultant habitat degradation
in Arizona and New Mexico. At the time of listing, the total estimated
population was 2,160 owls. One of three spotted owl subspecies, its range
extends from the southern Rocky Mountains in Colorado and the Colorado
Plateau in Utah southward through Arizona and New Mexico into the Sierra
Madres in Mexico. Today, the owl continues to be threatened by logging
practices, wildland-urban interface treatments, domestic livestock grazing,
mining operations, recreational developments, and fire.

The Center for Biological
Diversity, formed in 1989, is a science-based environmental advocacy organization
with more than 5,000 members which works on wildlife and habitat protection
issues throughout Western North America. Diné Citizens Against
Ruining Our Environment (Diné CARE) is an all-Navajo environmental
organization based within the Navajo reservation, formed in 1991 and registered
as a not-for-profit corporation with the Navajo Nation. Diné CARE's
main mission is the empowerment of local and traditional people to defend
their natural heritage. Center for Native Ecosystems, based in Boulder,
Colorado, is an advocacy organization dedicated to conserving and recovering
native and naturally functioning ecosystems in the Greater Southern Rockies
and Plains.

The suit is being
argued by Matt Kenna of Kenna and Hickcox in Durango and Neil Levine of
Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund in Denver.